Many learning institutions, both public and private, are increasingly dropping arts and humanities in favor of science and technological subjects such as information technology. For example, State University of New York at Alban has come up with measurers that are meant to reduce the number of humanity and arts related courses. Financial constrains and low enroll for the courses have been given as some of the reasons for the new development in the education sector. Hence the number of graduates in humanities has been decreasing. According to (Nussbaum 45). In ,1960s humanities shares of majors in the USA stood at8%-12% of the undergraduates. Between 1970-1971 and 2003-2004 English majors declined from7.6% to 3.9% of the total number of graduates nationally. What must be borne in mind is that this decline is not because humanities and arts are irrelevant to the modern realities. What is needed is a new critical look at the discipline and come up with ways of reversing this case.
Humanities help the learners to develop criticality in their thinking this is possible through studying critical and creative thinking. A product of this study will be someone who will be able to think in a reflective and reasonable manner
Teaching of critical and creative thinking helps the learners to have philosophy related skills which can are necessary in solving problems that they encounter in their lives as well as critically and creatively coming up with the beast ways of solving them. This discipline also helps develop leadership skills by equipping one with problem solving and decision making skills.
Learners imagination is also developed through teaching and learning of humanity based subjects. Here we may look at disciplines that involve imagination in their content. For example we have literature, drawing and design. We can then say that students of humanities can imaginatively come up with ways of dealing with daily challenges in life in a better way.
Humanities are mostly multidiscipline .The implication here is that we can cover different areas of many disciplines within one broad discipline. For example literature as a subject may encompass many other subjects, although in a less detailed manner, for example history, philosophy, language. A case like this will broadened the amount of knowledge and skills which is beneficial to them in different situations. There are also able to do various kinds of jobs thus increasing their chances of employment.
The notion that humanities are just luxuries that can be done away with is not only irrational but is also laughable. Humanities are very crucial in the development and promotion of democracy in the society. This is possible because humanities give the learners necessary life skills such as negotiation skills, tolerance to divergent standpoints in life and leadership skills. These skills enable them to be tolerant to divergent point of views as well as skills to discuss in a healthy manner various issues in the society.
Through studying of history it becomes possible for learner to learn about the world he or she lives in .The learner will have enough knowledge to be able to overcome various stereotypes that are inherent in the world. Tolerance to other people’s cultures, language and religion will be fostered among people of the world to create a democratic world full of mutual understanding. Relatively speaking, knowledge of world around us and that surrounding others can enhance democracy as compared to lack of knowledge about them.
The study of literature can provide creative imagination and argument skills that those who want to pursue sure science and technological careers may require in the future. The upcoming engineers, doctors and computer scientists can learn how to argue by reading article of Plato which is in literature and philosophy (The Aims of Education and other Essays, New York, 1993)
The fact that that various departments high learning institutions work together is very well known .These departments work in collaboration with one another and also learn from one another with a view of ensuring as much efficiency as possible in their various departments and institutions. Humanities and arts will therefore form a large source of information for science and technological department. The possibility of this lies in the fact that humanities entail very many areas of study as we have already seen in this essay.
The ongoing elimination is also destructive to the growth of business. This truism can be traced to the fact that social skills that are required in business such as negotiation skills, mutual understanding of people from different backgrounds can be learnt in humanities. All these provide a good business environment.
Fairness and equal rights practices which are some of the important ingredients for a peaceful society can be learnt by learners through gaining good knowledge of the world of several races, religions and cultures. As it has already discussed this is possible through the study of humanities. Eventually we will have societies whose members are open minded and who are having a robust understanding of different backgrounds of people who may racially, culturally, religiously and politically diversified . Tolerance towards these diversities is also developed so that we do not subject those who are different from us in one way or another to unfair treatment of others because we are racially, culturally or religiously different from them
The need for learning institutions to increase the concentration of experience can be realized through inclusion of humanities in the curriculum. So what will be the result of this? The answer is that the curriculum will provide the learners with a large volume of knowledge (Missions of the Curriculum, 1977).
The ongoing decrease of humanities at both the state schools and Ivy League universities is an act that transparently points at the need to have a careful look at our system of education. We are forced to ask ourselves why the need to learn art subjects like at the lower levels of learning only for them to be banned later on. So are they just learnt for the sake of learning them? Surely the reasons as to why they are being learnt up to high schools should stand even at the universities.
Areas of a people’s career are not a straight one way line. There are bound to be changes in ones career or job placement from time to time. Studies have shown that today’s undergraduates will change their jobs up to at least six time before someone retires .This calls for flexibility in what is learned so that they do not train to do just one or two jobs. Humanities which cover various areas of different fields therefore become indispensable.
Many parents and students see college and university education as investments as an investment there is the need for huge and quick economic returns which humanities cannot fully guarantee. This is because of fewer job placements and less salaries of humanity based careers compared to those of technology based careers. It is therefore needless to say that most of students with this kind of mentality will opt for other disciplines rather than humanities for faster and higher financial returns. This has also resulted in general decease in the number of admission to humanity departments in both elite schools and public universities by more than 50% in the last decade alone. Students are therefore willing to pay more for the science and technological subjects at the Ivy League universities.
The higher demand for science and technological subjects has result
Partly to be blamed for the dwindling in demand for humanities is the way they are being taught. Many lecturers have failed to adopt new and relevant teaching methods as well as doing adequate research to modernize their teachings. Most of them have instead stuck with their traditional methods of content delivery which are, in most cases are insensitive to the current social, political and economic realities. At the State schools and Ivy League Universities there is shortage of lecturers for humanities. Many learners at the Ivy League universities have complained about them being taught by poorly qualified humanities assistant lecturers. This due to lack enough funds in the face of reduced government funding of university and to a larger extent the funding of humanities.
Now, what do you expect? Obviously we will have graduates of humanities that are quite incapable of competing in the very competitive modern labor market. A scenario like this therefore makes humanities irrelevant to the needs of the contemporary society.
High competition among universities for new admissions makes it almost it impossible for universities ,especially the public ones, to continue offering humanity courses which are in high demand because of the expected poor market for their campuses into jeopardy. Why the rush? They want to get more money in terms of tuition fee to help run their progammes efficiently in the face of reduced government spending on high education as a result of the global financial crisis. However it must be noted that private learning institutions are not much affected by the funding compared to the state ones. They are therefore able to handle fairly a larger number of students than the public
Lastly we need to ask ourselves, ‘What do we stand to lose if humanities and art subjects are done away with at the university level? First of all we should ask ourselves whether the elimination of art and humanities ware in accordance with the American’s purpose of education. In this case education becomes rather commercialized and those who do not have enough money may be forced to stop learning all together. The universities are offering more of courses that are having more financial returns while parents and learners view college education as a form of investment. To them the purpose of going for college education is to boost their financial status. When this happens we will eventually increase inequality in our society.
In eliminating humanities we risk losing our sense of understanding. We cannot just abandon offering of humanities and arts simply because majority of learners have low appetite for them. This is a shallow reasoning in which we ignore the needs of other learners who may do well in the disciplines.
We fail to take into account that we have individual differences when it comes to learning. Not all the students can learn then on arts and non humanity subjects that are being more fancied by learning institutions than are and humanities. The learner should be provided with different areas of studies .The offering foreign languages for example French in the US provides a good opportunity for learners to make choices based on their individual preferences. In learning these languages they also get to learn about the culture since ones language is an integral part of his culture.
I would like to conclude by asserting the fact that the elimination of arts and humanities is an act that should be condemned by all and sundry. The claim by some people that these disciplines are just luxuries that are only overburdening the tax payers is not only crass but also insensitive. However, there is the need to make proper and adequate changes on the contents of these subjects so that they become more relevant to the needs of our current society instead of eliminating them.
Works Cited
Nussbaum, Martha. Cultivating the imagination. Chicago. University of Chicago, 2010
Menand,LouisThe Market Place of ideas. Carolina. Harvard University. 2010
McWhorter, John. Not everyone Needs French. Oxford .University Press, 2010
Tuchman, Gaye. Wannabe U: Inside the corporate University. New York. Queen collage, 2010
McCall Ann. When cuts are inevitable. Edinburg. Oxford University Press, 2010.
Nussbaum, Martha. Not for profit: Why democracy needs the Humanities. Princeton. Princeton and Oxford University Press, 2010.
